Wapsi Square Forum

As in, don't read every day, but wait a few days then gorge on Wapsi? I find myself waiting until 3 to 5 strips have been posted, then I read through them to get more in one go... I wonder what that says about me, psychologically?

Actually, i read 'em as they post - but i also collect them. I have the entire runs of Wapsi, Misfile, Pibgorn and a couple others, and i have Luann and 9 Chickweed Lane (and others) going back as far as the currently available on-line archives will let me go.

PrettyPrincess wrote:As in, don't read every day, but wait a few days then gorge on Wapsi? I find myself waiting until 3 to 5 strips have been posted, then I read through them to get more in one go... I wonder what that says about me, psychologically?

It says "You're a mad woman! A MAD woman!"

But, seriously, folks. I went nine months, not at my choice, mind you, so I got to read all of this year, to date, in a couple of throws. It was nice not to have to agonize over the weekend breaks.
But, hell, that's half the fun.

I used to digitally archive strips on my computer, but I've changed computers so many times since starting to read this strip, I decided to just start at the beginning when I want story, then ask the comic wizards in the forums/comments if I needed help hunting down a particular scene.

I think that my current reading behavior came about as a self defense mechanism against cliffhanger Friday! That, and having kids means I often don't get my comics time every day.

New strips usually go up (when they're on time, i.e. mostly on Mondays ) when I get up, so... no.

I do save them to my hard drive, though - being able to go through thumbnails locally to find a strip is really useful, and that way I don't have to break out the books...

I only miss updates whenever there's a change to my routine (i.e. I take vacation time and don't sit in front of a computer that has all of my favorites bookmarked). I never intend to miss updates though. I don't have the patience.

PrettyPrincess wrote:I used to digitally archive strips on my computer, but I've changed computers so many times since starting to read this strip...

I don't "change computers" - i jack up my hard drives and drive new hardware under them.

Fairportfan wrote:I don't "change computers" - i jack up my hard drives and drive new hardware under them.

That - and there's also the wonderous thing called a NAS turned Debian Linux server...

Leak wrote:

Fairportfan wrote:I don't "change computers" - i jack up my hard drives and drive new hardware under them.

That - and there's also the wonderous thing called a NAS turned Debian Linux server...

This box may turn into a server if i get energetic enough to build another, crunchier, one from scratch...

Fairportfan wrote:

PrettyPrincess wrote:I used to digitally archive strips on my computer, but I've changed computers so many times since starting to read this strip...

I don't "change computers" - i jack up my hard drives and drive new hardware under them.

LOL'd

That closer to what I do than replacing them...

Well... I have a copy of Wapsi Square from the very beginning. ....

Considering who I am, that doesn't surprise anyone, right?

My collection is of fanart strip sources, interesting poses and layouts, and lots of PW auction and poster stuff. My art morgue of Cartoons alone is nearly 3400 files from dozens of strips and artists.

So much to learn -- and good examples to learn from!

Given that Wapsi is the one comic I have followed the longest, I have never even THOUGHT of keeping all the strips on my HD, mostly for one reason:

There's WAY TOO DAMN MANY.

jwhouk wrote:There's WAY TOO DAMN MANY.

Yeah, those 210MB really drag my 2TB data drive down...

I save some that I find particularly interesting or funny. I found a copy of one that Penny arcade had to take down.

I saved the entire "Mundane Nirvana" even though it's still up. It updates almost never now. http://mundanenirvana.comicgenesis.com

I also saved "Yu Me Dream" http://rosalarian.com/yume the story has ended and I wanted a copy.

I have every single strip neatly packed into single-year folders. With backup copies. And that's not all - I actually have complete runs of every webcomic I've ever liked, including a couple that went dark. I'd love to repost those for the benefit of humanity, but sadly I'm too much of an honest soul to ever violate copyright in that way.

I liked this thread question enough to go dig around my archive and found that I have exactly 7 Wapsi Strips that I have saved.
Almost all of these I secured at the time they were posted so they have been on various hard drives, memory sticks or CD's over the years.

1) "He's a Dog!" - the very first strip I read way way way back when I first found Wapsi (there is another thread about that here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22#p174) I retroactively saved this one.

2) "They use the rest of the alphabet?" - this one I actually copied from another website, I believe it was for an on-line bra shopping site and it was one of the first times I had seen Paul's work outside of his site. There was a note on the site that it was being used with permission so it was interesting and showed that there was some interaction between artist and big bra users even that early in the strip's run.

3) "My tia's boobs" - This was one that Paul had up on his Deviant Art web page and I snagged it for several reasons; first, it was the first time there was more disclosure about Monica's extended family, second, Paul had the strip up on DA without text bubbles or some clean up so you could see more of how he built a strip, third, it talked about her drinking getting her in repeated trouble (the character's confirmed mild alcoholism*), fourth and for a brief moment I thought she was talking about both her Irish grandparents which makes much more sense given her physique, fifth, this was an early transition art style strip where the characters started to exhibit what would become the much more distinct "square jaw or block finger" look they have today, sixth, it also referenced the change in season - the only confirmed way to establish the passage of time within the strip and how one can establish the age of the human characters within the context of the strip - Monica is at least 30 years old** within the strips posted in 2012 BTW.

4) I do not have the name of this strip, and I wish Paul would also just use numbers along with names - It is the strip where most of the still active cast (all female) are leaving the dance/club/bar after Monica has another of her drinking binges. The reason I saved this one is because it was (at the time) the best indication of relative height between most of the characters. It showed who was taller than whom because they were all in the same frame at the same time on a level floor, etc. Over the years Tina has gone through the most height changes as Paul has worked out just exactly what role she would play in the strip. Ever notice that the more authoritarian a character the taller they are in the strip? Ever wonder how tall Paul the artist is?

5) The now famous 8-ball shirt strip as it formed the basis of a major merchandise element of the strip. Also it is one of the first times I recall seeing some obvious "photoshop" effects - in this case directional blur - used within the strip.

6) The "original" 2001-12-21 strip, the first color strip of Wapsi, that actually shows the skin and hair color of Monica as Paul originally envisioned, it even has Amanda for comparison. Monica has slowly become darker over the years. This strip today has a different color saturation so the change is less obvious.

7) NOT REALLY A STRIP - but I also saved the colored version file of Dietzel that Paul had on his DA site that is the colored scan of the original that I own and have mounted on the wall above my computer. This is the same pose and image used to produce the Dietzel figurine, which I do not have.

I also had saved a few strips with obvious character inconsistencies, changes in build, etc. and even a few that show text edits on Paul's part and retroactive changes for story consistency, misspellings and the like. However a few years back I tried to figure out why I was holding on to them and realized that Paul is human and makes adjustments to better the overall story. They really did not "prove" anything and so I got rid of them.
There have been some good ones however I wonder if others have noticed them...
~ When Tina had Amanda's body or was Shelly's height
~ When Monica's hair suddenly lengthened
~ The incredible range of Monica's breast size (not part of any flash-back)
~ Some text edits/changes over the years for plot reasons
~ Times when Amanda's arm tattoo is not there (and why I thought it was a bracelet for about 10 years till Paul said otherwise)
~ When characters had 4 digits on a hand (think mickey mouse)

* This was confirmed at the time, the character is now in a "different place" and "moved on" per the artist
** There have been recent Wiki discussions trying to remove the time significance of the seasons mentioned in the strip however coupled with references to birthdays and the obvious progression of time (remember the whole "let's do it before 2012" plot suggested by Monica's now nearly invisible boyfriend?) there is time within the strip and they are marked by seasons shown in the strip and that means that Monica started the strip at least age 23+ and there have been a minimum of 7+ seasons or years shown or mentioned - she is at least 30.

Didn't read Wapsi for almost a month and a half during vacation and thereafter until I had completed a critical task. Catching up was fun.

Lee M wrote:I have every single strip neatly packed into single-year folders. With backup copies. And that's not all - I actually have complete runs of every webcomic I've ever liked, including a couple that went dark. I'd love to repost those for the benefit of humanity, but sadly I'm too much of an honest soul to ever violate copyright in that way.

Oh, how I miss Hellbound! The single funniest/weirdest strip I've ever seen.

Epic scene: the main characters, sitting on a log, attempting to get it to fly by holding their arm out. Doesn't work. Says the ringleader:

"Please understand, this isn't so much a validation of your idea, but a testimony to my laziness."

Nimrod wrote:I liked this thread question enough to go dig around my archive and found that I have exactly 7 Wapsi Strips that I have saved.
Almost all of these I secured at the time they were posted so they have been on various hard drives, memory sticks or CD's over the years.

1) "He's a Dog!" - the very first strip I read way way way back when I first found Wapsi (there is another thread about that here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=22#p174) I retroactively saved this one.

2) "They use the rest of the alphabet?" - this one I actually copied from another website, I believe it was for an on-line bra shopping site and it was one of the first times I had seen Paul's work outside of his site. There was a note on the site that it was being used with permission so it was interesting and showed that there was some interaction between artist and big bra users even that early in the strip's run.

3) "My tia's boobs" - This was one that Paul had up on his Deviant Art web page and I snagged it for several reasons; first, it was the first time there was more disclosure about Monica's extended family, second, Paul had the strip up on DA without text bubbles or some clean up so you could see more of how he built a strip, third, it talked about her drinking getting her in repeated trouble (the character's confirmed mild alcoholism*), fourth and for a brief moment I thought she was talking about both her Irish grandparents which makes much more sense given her physique, fifth, this was an early transition art style strip where the characters started to exhibit what would become the much more distinct "square jaw or block finger" look they have today, sixth, it also referenced the change in season - the only confirmed way to establish the passage of time within the strip and how one can establish the age of the human characters within the context of the strip - Monica is at least 30 years old** within the strips posted in 2012 BTW.

4) I do not have the name of this strip, and I wish Paul would also just use numbers along with names - It is the strip where most of the still active cast (all female) are leaving the dance/club/bar after Monica has another of her drinking binges. The reason I saved this one is because it was (at the time) the best indication of relative height between most of the characters. It showed who was taller than whom because they were all in the same frame at the same time on a level floor, etc. Over the years Tina has gone through the most height changes as Paul has worked out just exactly what role she would play in the strip. Ever notice that the more authoritarian a character the taller they are in the strip? Ever wonder how tall Paul the artist is?

5) The now famous 8-ball shirt strip as it formed the basis of a major merchandise element of the strip. Also it is one of the first times I recall seeing some obvious "photoshop" effects - in this case directional blur - used within the strip.

6) The "original" 2001-12-21 strip, the first color strip of Wapsi, that actually shows the skin and hair color of Monica as Paul originally envisioned, it even has Amanda for comparison. Monica has slowly become darker over the years. This strip today has a different color saturation so the change is less obvious.

7) NOT REALLY A STRIP - but I also saved the colored version file of Dietzel that Paul had on his DA site that is the colored scan of the original that I own and have mounted on the wall above my computer. This is the same pose and image used to produce the Dietzel figurine, which I do not have.

I also had saved a few strips with obvious character inconsistencies, changes in build, etc. and even a few that show text edits on Paul's part and retroactive changes for story consistency, misspellings and the like. However a few years back I tried to figure out why I was holding on to them and realized that Paul is human and makes adjustments to better the overall story. They really did not "prove" anything and so I got rid of them.
There have been some good ones however I wonder if others have noticed them...
~ When Tina had Amanda's body or was Shelly's height
~ When Monica's hair suddenly lengthened
~ The incredible range of Monica's breast size (not part of any flash-back)
~ Some text edits/changes over the years for plot reasons
~ Times when Amanda's arm tattoo is not there (and why I thought it was a bracelet for about 10 years till Paul said otherwise)
~ When characters had 4 digits on a hand (think mickey mouse)

* This was confirmed at the time, the character is now in a "different place" and "moved on" per the artist
** There have been recent Wiki discussions trying to remove the time significance of the seasons mentioned in the strip however coupled with references to birthdays and the obvious progression of time (remember the whole "let's do it before 2012" plot suggested by Monica's now nearly invisible boyfriend?) there is time within the strip and they are marked by seasons shown in the strip and that means that Monica started the strip at least age 23+ and there have been a minimum of 7+ seasons or years shown or mentioned - she is at least 30.

No longer collecting select strips - have not in years...

Wow! - It feels like forever since I wrote this and yet it does encapsulate my overall experiences with the Wapsi-verse. Yes, I did make a resolution to stop reading the strip on Decemebr 31, 2012 and waited one whole year before I visited the comic site again in order to see if a person reading the strip in a big mass would get a different feeling that one who had read it day by day since strip #13.

Ironically, I stopped reading just as Paul implemented his big shift to the "2nd generation" cast. Almost like I had picked up on the change. Go look at what happened in the first few strips of 2013. You can image my surprise when a year later I started reading the strip. It felt like a totally different comic. The whole Monica Jaguar Girl + Georgette rape thing + Atsali siren form + First days of school happened that year.

Now a year after my forced moratorium on the comic and having followed the strip in a much more sporadic fashion I find myself more detached from the characters - it really feels like, just like many of the "original" characters I have moved on. Perhaps 2012, like the calendar machine two years earlier, marked the end of a big comic arc and time to focus on something else.

I do have to say that I still like to claim a personal victory at establishing Monica's in-strip age well before the chronology section was published in the previous forum and base on information taken from the very earliest website information (long since removed) and Paul's seasonal representations then to have it confirmed within the strip long after most other forum members had argued to the contrary.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/still-at-it/